PinStove delivered 1000 Home Cooked Dishes on 6 May!

Beyond business, a great cause made this day so special and rewarding for everyone at PinStove.

PinStove India took that challenge that 1000 homemade dishes are to be delivered to customers in the city of Trivandrum on 6 May, Sunday. Compared to the previous challenge we had a few months back to deliver 100 orders within 2 hours on a Sunday lunchtime, this one really was a challenge.

Demand Challenge

The team soon realized that they would need bulk orders to meet the above target, to avoid the risk of delivering high volume individual orders and potentially delaying. Although the team has delivered several party orders thru PinsStove in the past, they were for quantities of 50 or less. To get 1000 units we needed to get big orders (really big ones). As soon as the challenge was set, the normal promotion runs using PinStove messaging was done.

First Hindrance

However, the school holiday season normally results in a dip in the number of orders on PinStove due to our Home Chefs takes time off, and this time as well it was no different. So, getting a few big orders thru PinStove was the only way to hit the target of that 1000 units.

Team Re-group

The team raked their brains over bringing in bulk orders with a vague hope of getting a bulk order for a few birthday and housewarming parties. The trouble with the bulk orders is that we cannot set the date on which the order would happen. So, getting bulk orders exactly for the 6th of May (the challenge day) was proving difficult. With 3 weeks to hit the challenge day, there were no bulk orders for the 6th. The push notifications, discounted promotions etc were not generating the bulk orders that the team were expecting.

Build up

With 2 weeks to go to the challenge day, a slight hope arose about the housewarming party is on the 6th of May. That could account for about one-third of the required number of units and still, we need to find ways of getting another 600 or so units sold. With a week to the challenge day, the order for the housewarming party was finalized for the 6th of May, with 300 units of breakfast (Idiyappam, fried rice and chapatti and curry). Technically this was nearly 900 individual items (if we consider one idiyappam as one unit :)). But the team was taking the challenge on its spirit rather than on its technicality.

Partnering for a great cause

One of the conversations a team member had with an acquaintance who was planning to make a donation to a temple deity was the game changer. The team seized on that opportunity and asked the donor, would the god not be happy if they were to make that offering of a fresh, warm home cooked meal to the hungry people of Trivandrum. It took a bit of convincing, but finally they accepted that feeding those who are hungry and needy would be the best offering that any god would be happy to accept, PinStove team set about organizing a feed the poor activity on the 6th of May. The donor was willing to spend over Rs 22000 and PinStove took it upon themselves to deliver the best-priced item for the most number of people with that money. So it was decided that PinStove would supply 400 units of Chicken biriyanis on the 6th of May for that price.

Delivery Challenge

Identifying and distributing these units to the deserving people was the next challenge. Luckily ‘Changathikkoottam’ in Trivandrum stepped in and they assured us that they would collect and deliver the 400 units of Chicken Biriyanis to those who need it on the 6th of May.

With around 800 units of items now guaranteed to be sold on the 6th of May, a customer placed an order for 50 Biriyanis for the 6th of May. With orders for nearly 850 units confirmed, the team aggressively promoted the 6th of May sale thru push messaging. By the 5th of May, the customers started placing orders for the popular chefs and items. By mid-day on the 5th of May the team was nearly on target to achieve the 1000 units sale on the 6th.

May 6

On the 6th, orders were still coming thru. Our Biriyani chefs were true to their words and had over 470 Biriyanis ready for delivery by 11:00 am. Changathikkoottam (the charity group) as promised arrived and collected the Biriyanis and was on their way to deliver them by 12:00.

The Housewarming party breakfast order was promptly delivered in the morning. With 200 units of snack items for the evening tea session, the housewarming party accounted for nearly 500 units of items sold. Regular customer orders helped us push the total number of units sold on the day to be over 1000.

Do you know the total units that were sold today? 1092

Wow……we are still relishing that achievement…. especially the great opportunity we were blessed with to feed 400 hungry people and that made it so special.